How NOT to show holiday stress?

[Harriet Vane]

Reading the other thread about the extra work of the holidays has made me introspective. I am particularly struck by those posts that reflect unhappiness with memories of their mothers' holiday stress sucking the joy from it when they were children.

 

I have two holiday issues:

 

1--I am not and never have been a gifted housekeeper. And I. hate. shopping. Therefore the holidays represent an enormous amount of mind-numbing work. I find myself resentful of the work and the shopping, and resentful of my family who want me to put on the whole show without help. I don't accept that--I require the kids and dh to help--but HATE the cajoling, nagging, and ultimately, bullying that is required to make the magic happen. And the thing is, we don't even make our holidays that elaborate.

 

2--I have a deeply dysfunctional, unhappy set of relatives. I associate the holidays with stress and unhappiness. I don't see them nearly as much as I used to, but am still tied to them for at least the next ten years because of the mothering that some motherless cousins need from me. Even though I now have dh and the kids, and dh's lovely family, I still approach the holidays with unhappiness.

 

I know that my kids know of my stress, and I don't like to inflict that upon them. Dh is wonderful about creating fun and light and happiness, and I am grateful to follow his lead. My burning question, though, is how to pull out of the miasma of my own stress, to hide that more effectively from my children, and to try to do more than just get through the holidays.

[Dayle in Guatemala]

Even though I enjoy the holidays and all the planning, there are things that stress me out too and seem to be what I can focus on if I let it.

 

I hate shopping too! ANYTHING about the process really irritates me. I cut back on expectations from people outside my immediate family (kids and dh) by announcing to everyone that we will not be exchanging any kind of gift with them. We will send cards and well wishes, but, we just can't do gifts and we don't expect any. It helps that we live outside the country!;) But, we started to do that before we lived here. We just spent time making great memories with our families:

 

--decorating Easter eggs, making Christmas ornaments, the kids putting together a musical thing for the family during the holidays, games, theme nights, etc.

 

Any shopping that I do for the immediate family is done online, throughout the year to help with budgeting. It also helps with budgeting to shop online because I don't do the impulse buying you get when you're in a store.

 

As far as other holiday things, I don't get too worked up about decorations, there are certain things that are important to each child and I make sure that those things happen. And there are certain things that we bake together that are super important to our traditions (gingerbread houses, coconut cake for Easter, etc) and those things always happen. But, we try to spend our time as a family doing what we enjoy.

 

When we lived in the US there were always expectations put on us by other family members to travel and make it all happen for all of them. At one point dh and I made it clear that we don't travel on every holiday. Period. Holidays are super important, but, we don't want our dc to grow up not ever experiencing a nuclear-family holiday.

 

Cutting outside expectations and not worrying so much about cleaning, shopping, and preparing really has helped me to enjoy the holidays so much more!

[regentrude]

Ditch all holiday activities that YOU don't think are fun, and select only the ones YOU enjoy.

For instance: for Christmas, I love baking cookies, singing carols, going to concerts and writing Christmas letters to people close to me.

I hate attending parades, Santa events, and doing any kind of crafts - so if my kids feel artsy, they can use the supplies and do it themselves. I will not make my own Christmas cards, ornaments or other decorations. I also do not participate in gift exchanges with people who are almost strangers and will not write cards to people I don't care enough about to send them a real letter.

 

Keep it simple. I only put out a few select decorations, pieces that are especially dear to me. Not the whole house. I refuse to clutter my house with seasonal towel sets and seasonal china.

 

We keep gift giving to the immediate family and shop over the internet - very relaxing to do the holiday shopping from your own sofa. I refuse to participate in the black Friday sales craziness - if I can't afford otherwise, I won't buy it. Gifts for teachers etc we keep simple: a calendar or a gift card.

 

I actually wish I had a chance to travel to see my family or for anybody to come visit - I don't find having overnight visitors stressful. All I would have to do is clean the guest bathroom and make a bit more food - it would be well worth it. For me, the most stressful thing about the holidays is that it is just the four of us.

[Rosie_0801]

And I. hate. shopping.

 

That should be easy to fix.

Step 1: Order everything you can online.

Step 2: Write a detailed shopping list and send dh and the kids out to get everything.

Step 3: "Well it was on the shopping list. You didn't get it? Never mind, we just won't have it." (While thinking to self, "ha ha, now I don't have to make the trifle/clean up the tissue paper/whatever.) If you can pull of the right tone, everyone will be so happy that you haven't made them go out again, they won't mind not having it. If they do complain, you look surprised and say "I put it on the shopping list but you didn't get any! You can go get some now if Dad will take you."

 

I require the kids and dh to help--but HATE the cajoling, nagging, and ultimately, bullying that is required to make the magic happen. And the thing is, we don't even make our holidays that elaborate.

 

"You don't want to peel the potatoes? Ok, well you need to go and tell everyone that we will be having potatoes with the peel still on because you don't want to peel them. If it is important to them, they will come and do it." "You don't want to clean the kitchen up so I can cook? Ok, I'll clean the kitchen if you do all the cooking. You can't cook? Oh, I see. Well you can clean the kitchen. I can't because I am doing this. If you want to wait for me to finish, you can. Oh, but you'd better go and tell everyone that you are choosing for lunch to be very, very late." (Ok, my kids aren't big enough to pull this on as yet, but I'm mean enough that I'll do it when they are!)

 

My burning question, though, is how to pull out of the miasma of my own stress, to hide that more effectively from my children, and to try to do more than just get through the holidays.

 

My mother used to send us outside to play and would refuse to let us back in. That works well enough if they have someone to play with. It doesn't work so well if you are the oldest by far and too old for playing anyway. Now I'm old enough to know some of what was going on inside, being bored and somewhat miserable outside was the better option in many cases, lol.

 

Dh and I have solved the problems we have had so far by refusing to do anything we really don't want to do. Of course our kids aren't big enough to complain yet so we'll see what happens in the future. Some things are negotiable (like what we are going to eat.) Some things are not. (No, I am not attending a traditional family Christmas with my inlaws ever, ever, ever again because it is horribly, terribly, awfully boring and makes me want to gouge out my cochleas with a fondue fork. Besides, we all have a better time picnicking in the park.)

 

Rosie

[arghmatey]

1) We invite only people whose company we enjoy (this excludes a lot of family, oh darn)

 

2) SO helps every step of the way

 

3) If I get overwhelmed, I call a caterer

 

4) I have a Shiner

[sewingmama]

I made our holidays simpler by resigning -seriously. We don't have any family nearby which you would think would make it easier but in fact makes it harder because there is no one to share the load. DH expects this huge family dinner every year but I don't have it in me to prepare all that myself. DH whines and whines about how Christmas was so wonderful when he was a kid and he wants the same now - but he doesn't want to help me do it. He didn't have to help as a kid and now he still wants it to appear "like magic".

 

So two years ago after spending the entire day on Christmas day non-stop cooking and cleaning by myself from the early morning to 11pm that night while everyone else sat around and enjoyed Christmas I told DH I was no longer going to go to all the effort unless he helped. The next year -he didn't help - and the next year he didn't get - we had a smaller and much happier Christmas.

 

My kids are too young to care about anything but the presents - when they are older and will remember it more I will do more and they will be old enough to help. Until then - I do the basics and that's it.

 

I shop for all my Christmas gifts in July. The stores here have big toy sales then and you can put it all on layaway and they will keep it for you till Christmas Eve. So I do the shopping and pay it off over 6 months. When Christmas comes everything is paid for so no money stress and all I have to do is go pick up the gifts -no shopping in the Christmas crowds.

 

I do a basic dinner with snacks - and basically just hang out playing with the kids all day. So far the only person who has noticed that Christmas isn't perfect is my DH and as I said before - apparently he doesn't want it bad enough because he won't help me accomplish it -so tough luck to him:lol:

[tadah]

I too remember my mother doing all the work related to Christmas. I appreciated her effort, but don't have the happiest of associations with the holiday.

 

Our holiday is very simple. I like doing a tree; sometimes I send cards. I buy a few small gifts for children and elderly relatives (usually mail order -- I avoid stores in December). That's it. I don't do fancy cooking because just getting regular meals on the table is enough. I don't bake because ... just getting regular meals on the table is enough. I treasure every day with my family, and treating my family members with love and respect is my top priority. The rest of the holiday hoopla just doesn't seem worth it to me.

[bbsweetpea]

I have this problem too. Mine is more though because I HATE changes and being around a bunch of people. Even growing up I did not enjoy holidays after the age of 8 because of these two things.

 

Also my husband works a TON around Christmas so everything is done by me. Around Easter I have two birthday parties (both girls born in early April) plus Easter. These scenarios stress me out.

 

 

I try very hard to make it fun for my kids and push through my issues. I don't do a lot of activities that most do for their kids. We don't color eggs at Easter for example. I do take them to an egg hunt in town though and we still have our family get together on Easter. In the fall we do go to a pumpkin patch and the church Halloween festival. We don't trick or treat door to door or hand out candy at home. At Christmas we have a family dinner here at home and decorate a few weeks before.

 

I am very anal so I will always be deep cleaning the house in March/April and November/December. There is not really anything I can do about it so I just try and do it over a two week period so that I don't stress myself out.

 

I also shop online to keep me from having to go out and shop during the busy seasons. I mail things to most family members and if we do have a family gathering I make it simple (at my house). Everyone is always assigned a dish or two to bring so that I don't have to do it all.

 

My kids usually have a great time and then I crash and burn for about a week (literally sleep a ton and veg out) after each major event.

Edited April 23, 2011 by bbsweetpea

[Pretty in Pink]

I only do the things that are enjoyable and meaningful to our family during the holidays. Some years we enjoy big potlucks with friends or family. Some years we cook at home, and then we have fun planning the menu together and making sure that each person chooses at least one dish for the big meal. Some years we pick up Boston Market. We only attend parties that we truly want to attend. I guess we just do what sounds fun to us at the time and don't worry about the rest of it...

[lllll]

...

Edited December 20, 2012 by ksva

[Peela]

We just don't do any of it. The kids get something chocolate for Easter. That's it. We do what we like to do, whatever that is. Holidays are no different from any other time here, except for Christmas and we really keep that simple, too.

 

Maybe question why you are doing it all if it doesn't bring you joy? We know what we like doing and it definitely isn't anything that is stressful.

[Harriet Vane]

We just don't do any of it. The kids get something chocolate for Easter. That's it. We do what we like to do, whatever that is. Holidays are no different from any other time here, except for Christmas and we really keep that simple, too.

 

Maybe question why you are doing it all if it doesn't bring you joy? We know what we like doing and it definitely isn't anything that is stressful.

 

Why do I do it? Two reasons:

 

1--For many years I struggled with the desire to be "normal." I wanted a normal, happy family holiday, so I threw myself into doing the trappings of the holiday properly. I recognized years ago that that was not making the holidays happy for me. That leads us to the next reason:

 

2--Dh had really, really happy holidays. We both want our kids to have the same kinds of wonderful memories he has.

 

There was one Christmas, a couple years ago, when I felt specifically led by God to do a big, old-fashioned family thing with my half of the family. In retrospect, it was the last Christmas that my aunt was able to enjoy in any sense--a brain tumor twisted her body and shut down her mind so that she was incapable of enjoying a family party after that. I also felt "led" again, because of dh's happy memories--I wanted to give that to my aunt's kids (my cousins). I consider that particular holiday an exception though--I felt specifically and supernaturally "led" to do that, and accepted my holiday stress as secondary to what I felt I needed to do that year.

 

Anyway, I guess my op is centered around reason #2, above. I want my children to have the kinds of happy memories that my dh has. I struggle, though, with my stress level and with the fact that I personally do not enjoy the work behind the "trappings" of the holiday production.

[Harriet Vane]

I wouldn't say I really love holidays, but I hate them less than I used to. :) Here are a few of the changes which helped me, personally.

 

- turned the decorating over to the kids a long time ago. They loved it. In fact, 2 of our dc start planning the decorations a couple of months in advance of Christmas at this point. I always let them decorate any old way they want, and rave about all of it. They've gotten very good at it, too.

 

- dh took over most of the shopping. He does most of our shopping anyway, so he may as well do the holiday shopping along with it. He was happy to do it since he thought I was spending too much money anyway.

 

- had dc give us lists to choose gifts from. I'm not that creative, and dh is even less so. Turned out a lot of the things they wanted were on websites, which they even tacked onto their lists.

 

- stayed home. That's self-explanatory - home turf and all that.

 

- kept everything very simple and only kept what was important to us, personally. For example, I hate turkey; so I have never cooked a turkey in my life. Dh used to cook one sometimes. Last Thanksgiving, (grown) ds cooked one just to experiment with recipes. (I can see this ds eventually having a crowd of people over on holidays and cooking up a feast. He would love it.) But I don't cook really special meals for any holidays, unless it's a birthday cake should any dc request one. However, we have been known to stick candles in blackberrycobbler. :D

 

- focused on what's going on in nature vs the house. I love the quiet and stillness in the woods, and the long, dark nights during the winter holidays. Now, at Easter, I love to see all the flowers blooming and the leaves coming out on the trees. The song birds are back and their gorgeous songs echo throughout the woods before all the leaves are out to dull the sounds. During Thanksgiving, our leaves have just about all turned color.

 

- I didn't try to hide it. As our dc got older, I was honest with them about my feelings about holidays. I explained the source of the feelings (IOW, it had nothing to do with them.). They were fascinated, not horrified. They know why we don't see our relatives (anytime, not just holidays). They know the history. It's part of who we are. They get that.

 

 

It does seem to get better with time though. Not that that's much consolation for you presently. You'll get there. :grouphug:

 

Now see, this is why I love it when you post, Kathy. These suggestions fit me/my family well in terms of personality--thank you.

[Harriet Vane]

Thanks, everyone. I have tried doing more ordering online over the years, and have tried also to let go of certain "trappings" that are more work than they're worth. These measures help but have not fully gotten me over the wall of my holiday stress.

 

I am now musing, trying to figure out what the key is to actually enjoying the holidays. The two things that I always come back to are how much I truly enjoy spending time with dh and the kids, and also that I truly enjoy spending time with dh's family. If I could have that without the work and the stress I feel surrounding the holiday I would be happy--I need to figure out a way to hold onto the happiness I feel with those people and let the other things (the work, the unhappy associations) diminish.